2002 (MMII) was a common year that started on a Tuesday. In the Gregorian calendar, it was the 2002nd year of Anno Domini, the 2nd year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century, and the 3rd of the 2000s decade. The year 2002 was a palindrome, the first since 1991, which by coincidence, was also a common year that started on a Tuesday.

2002 was designated the:

International Year of Ecotourism and Mountains

Year of the Outback in Australia

National Science Year in the United Kingdom

Autism Awareness Year in the United Kingdom

Events

January

January 1

The Open Skies mutual surveillance treaty, initially signed in 1992, officially enters into force.

March 12 – In Houston, Texas, Andrea Yates is found guilty of drowning her 5 children on June 20, 2001. She is later sentenced to life in prison.

March 14 – Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament established.

March 17 – In Islamabad, Pakistan, the International Protestant Church attack occurs.

March 19 – US war in Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda ends after killing 500 Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters, with 11 allied troop fatalities.

March 21 – In Pakistan, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and 3 others are charged with the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

March 27 – A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 30 Israeli civilians and injures 140 others at the Park Hotel in Netanya, triggering Operation Defensive Shield, a large-scale counter-terrorist Israeli military incursion into the West Bank, two days later.

April

April 2 – Israeli forces besiege the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, when militants take shelter there.

April 9 – The funeral of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother takes place in Westminster Abbey, London.

April 11 – April 14 – A military coup d'état against the leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez fails.

April 15 – An Air China Boeing 767-200 crashes into a hillside during heavy rain and fog near Busan, South Korea, killing 128.

April 17 – Four Canadian infantrymen are killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire from 2 US F-16s.

April 18 – The discovery of a new insect order, Mantophasmatodea, is announced.

April 25 – Soyuz TM-34: South African Mark Shuttleworth blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; he had paid £15 million for the trip.

May

May 20: Flag of East Timor

May 9

A 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem ends, when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected militants among them deported to several different countries.

In Kaspiysk, Russia, a remote-control bomb explodes during a holiday parade, killing 43 and injuring at least 130.

May 10 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.

June 14 – In Karachi, Pakistan, a car bomb in front of the U.S. Consulate kills 12 Pakistanis and injures 50.

June 15 – Near Earth Asteroid 2002 MN misses the planet by 75,000 miles (121,000 km), about 1/3 the distance to the moon.

June 24 – The Igandu train disaster in Dodoma Region, Tanzania, kills 281 people in the worst rail accident in African history.

June 30 – Brazil wins their 5th FIFA World Cup by defeating Germany 2-0 in the 2002 FIFA World Cup Final.

July

July 1

The International Criminal Court is established.

Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937: A Russian passenger jet and a cargo plane collide over the town of Überlingen, Germany; 72 are killed.

July 9 – The Organization of African Unity is disbanded and replaced by the African Union.

July 15 – In Washington, D.C., "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to aiding the enemy and possession of explosives during the commission of a felony; Lindh agrees to serve 10 years in prison for each charge.

July 19 – Hail kills 25 and injures hundreds in the Chinese province of Henan.

July 21 – Telecommunications giant WorldCom files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (the largest such filing in United States history).

July 27 – A Sukhoi Su-27 fighter crashes at an air show in Ukraine, killing 77 and injuring more than 100, making it the worst air show disaster in history (see Sknyliv airshow disaster).

August

September

Gerhard Schröder

September 2 – The United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, successor of the Conference on the Human Environment, World Commission on Environment and Development, and the Conference on Environment and Development, opens.

September 5 – A car bomb kills at least 30 people in Afghanistan, and an apparent assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai fails the same day.

November 22 – In Nigeria, more than 100 are killed at an attack aimed at the Miss World contestants.

November 25 – U.S. President George W. Bush signs the Homeland Security Act into law, establishing the Department of Homeland Security, in the largest U.S. government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947,

December

December 7 – As required by the recently passed U.N. resolution, Iraq files a 12,000 page weapons declaration with the U.N. Security Council.

December 10 – The High Court of Australia hands down its judgement in the Internet defamation dispute in the case of Gutnick v Dow Jones.